Noisy voices, as of an increasing and excited throng, were audible. Michali, the mayor and the Swede rushed to the door, but were almost immediately swept back on the crest of an angry human wave. Two or three tall young shepherds, with long crooks in their left hands and with hairy cloaks thrown over their shoulders, were flinging their fists in the air and shouting hoarsely. Papa-Maleko, fully as tall as they, and looming above them by the height of his priest's hat, was flourishing angrily a bit of letter paper, and evidently attempting to out-yell them. His head was thrown back and his great black beard, jerked by his rapidly moving chin, twitched and danced upon his breast. Every moment more men, women and children crowded into the café, until it became thronged to suffocation. Curtis seized the little table that stood before him firmly with both hands and pulled it over his lame foot. The demarch, clambering upon a bench, shouted and gesticulated, evidently for order. His efforts, at first unavailing, at last resulted in partial quiet, and he began to speak. He finished and stepped down. Then one of the shepherds jumped upon the improvised platform. He was no orator, but with few and hesitating words, told his story. It was evidently a case where facts were eloquent, for his voice was soon drowned in an inextinguishable roar, in the midst of which Papa-Maleko sprang upon another bench and commenced to speak, still shaking the bit of paper. Silence again fell. Curtis could understand scarcely anything. Each of the speakers talked so rapidly that the words seemed all joined together into one word of interminable length. He only knew that he was listening to an outburst of wild, crude eloquence--the eloquence of passion--the exultation of righteous indignation. When the priest had finished he tore the paper into little bits, and threw them into the air with thumbs and fingers extended like the ribs of a fan, the Greek gesture of a curse. "Na!" he cried. In the moment of silence, of evident perplexity, which followed, Curtis arose, and, seizing Michali firmly by the shoulder, pulled him nearer. "What in heaven's name is all this?" he asked. "Bad, very bad," replied the Cretan. "Kostakes Effendi, with two hundred and fifty men, has two villages destroyed on other side of mountain, and kill many people. He write letter and say we send him Panayota, the priest's daughter, for his harem, he go 'way. If no, he come through the pass, burn, kill." Curtis sank upon the seat and stared dumbly at the broad back of the villager just before him. It expanded into the front of a whitewashed cottage, with a laughing Greek girl standing beneath a porch of vines. She had soft brown hair, large chestnut eyes and a low, broad forehead. As he looked, a frightened expression crept into the eyes, and she turned them upon him appealingly.